International Journal
of Electronics
and Communications
Space Laser Communications:
A Review of Major Programs in the United States
Gerhard A. Koepf, Robert G. Marshalek, and David L. Begley
Dedicated to Professor Walter R. Leeb on the occasion of his 60th birthday
Abstract This paper reviews space laser communication tech-
nology developments in the United States of America from
1960 to 2000. Early programs initiated and funded by gov-
ernment agencies closely followed the advancements made in
laser transmitter technology. In the 1980s, growing commer-
cial interest in long distance terrestrial fiber cables contributed
significantly to the advancement of critical components. While
several laser communications terminals were fully developed
and flight qualified, actual space flight tests were not conducted
due to funding problems, schedule overruns, and changed pri-
orities. The first opportunity for commercial intersatellite links,
the Iridium program, was missed due to a lack in technology
readiness. The second opportunity for large-scale commercial
deployment of very wide band terminals was the Teledesic pro-
gram. The Teledesic terminal combined the most advanced
design concepts with the latest component technologies. Un-
fortunately, business considerations forced the program to be
cancelled in 1998.
Keywords Tutorial, Space, Laser, Communications, Technology
Forward: This paper is written in honor of Prof. Dr.
Walter Leeb, who as a researcher and teacher has sub-
stantially influenced the development of laser communi-
cations technology. His name and work are well known
in the U.S. lasercom community through both his tenure
at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and his numer-
ous major conference presentations, particularly those at
the annual SPIE conferences. As a friend and former col-
league at the Technical University in Vienna, Austria,
Gerhard Koepf contributed this article in remembrance of
his and Walter’s participation in Gerhard Schiffner’s late-
60s “Laser Group” when we built gas lasers, performed
the early communications experiments, and developed the
first laser communications class.
Received February 1, 2002. Revised February 18, 2002.
Gerhard A. Koepf, EM-Technology, 700 Kalmia Avenue, Boulder,
CO 80304, USA. E-mail: em.tech@attbi.com
Robert G. Marshalek, Staff Consultant, Ball Aerospace & Tech-
nologies Corp., 1600 Commerce Street, Boulder, CO 80301, USA.
E-mail: bmarshal@ball.com
David L. Begley, Corporate Relations and Strategic Management,
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., 1600 Commerce Street,
Boulder, CO 80301, USA. E-mail: dbegley@ball.com
Correspondence to G. A. Koepf.
Int. J. Electron. Commun. (AEÜ) 56 (2002) No. 4, 232−242
© Urban & Fischer Verlag
http://www.urbanfischer.de/journals/aeue
1. Introduction
The application of laser technology to communications,
particularly space communications, was envisioned in the
very early days of laser development. For example, one of
the earliest laser communications patents, filed in 1962,
described a method for secure communications between
a satellite and a submarine.
In the 40 years since, government agencies, compa-
nies, universities, and individuals in many countries have
made tremendous technical progress. Today, the demand-
ing requirements of both government and commercial ap-
plications can be met; requirements that far exceed those
envisioned by even the most aggressive planners in the
early 1960s.
This paper reviews the developments from the begin-
ning to the Teledesic optical intersatellite link terminal
design. Our focus on developments in the United States
complements other contributions in this special edition
that address programs conducted in other parts of the
world. As we retrace the path of laser communications
development, we cannot give the proper credit due to all
contributors, teams and individuals. Such an effort would
occupy a much larger space. We, therefore, do not cite
references and trace our presentation only to the orga-
nizations that initiated and funded the various programs.
We do not claim that our review includes all the main
activities and programs in the U.S., but we believe it
does present a history of the development of this exciting
technology.
2. The beginning
In the 1960s, lasercom developments in the U.S. were
driven by NASA’s need for reliable, high-volume space
communications links. The earliest attempt at space-to-
ground laser communications, and the first attempt at
automated tracking of a ground beacon, was made dur-
ing the Gemini 7 mission in 1965. Astronaut James Lovell
was to look out one of the space capsule windows and ob-
serve an un-modulated Argon Ion laser beacon sent from
a NASA ground tracking station on Ascension Island in
the South Atlantic. He had a hand-held laser communi-
cator equipped with a viewfinder and a microphone. The
transmitter was a single heterojunction diode laser operat-
ing at 900 nanometers that was directly modulated by the
1434-8411/02/56/4-232 $15.00/0
 Space Laser Communications: A Review of Major Programs in the United States
Fig. 1. Testing the handheld optical transmitter for the Gemini 7
space to ground lasercom experiment.
speech signal. By pointing the laser communicator at the
beacon, he was to attempt to send messages to the NASA
scientists on the ground. Fig. 1 shows a technician test-
ing the laser communicator at the Manned Spaced Center
prior to the Gemini 7 flight. The experiment was unsuc-
cessful because the Argon Ion ground beacon laser failed
repeatedly. The laser was mounted on a tracking gimbal.
When the gimbal was tilted toward the space craft, the
water cooling system malfunctioned leading to an over-
heating of the laser tube.
In 1968–69, a group of NASA scientists used an opti-
cal receiver with a constant wide field of view onboard the
GEOS B satellite for uplink experiments. A high power
CW Argon Ion laser beam was expanded into a 40-deg
cone and pointed at the satellite. By chopping the beam at
the ground site using the Morse alphabet, they sent mes-
sages to the satellite. These were then relayed back to the
ground on the telemetry link.
3. The challenge
The early efforts described above confirmed the potential
of laser communications for space applications. They also
made it clear that substantial developments were needed
in both the pointing, acquisition and tracking (PAT) and
the laser transmitter technologies. It had become clear that
the characteristics of the laser transmitter drive the selec-
tion and design of all of the other components needed to
transport data on an optical carrier over very large dis-
tances. The laser output power largely determines the size
of the telescope and that, in turn, has a major influence on
the PAT subsystem. The laser wavelength drives the se-
lection of the modulator and detector components, while
the laser stability/phase noise characteristics influence the
modulation and detection method.
In the following three decades, numerous laser com-
munications technologies were investigated. The main
233
challenge was to find a set of components that combined
high power, efficiency, and spatial and temporal coherence
on the transmitter side with high-speed modulation and
sensitive detection capabilities. Initially only gas lasers
were available, but soon solid state and semiconductor
lasers matured and displaced the gas lasers as the prime
candidates for space communication. As programs de-
manded ever-higher bandwidths, more and more sophisti-
cated modulation and receiver techniques were employed
ultimately leading to homodyne detection receivers with
close to theoretical sensitivity.
Similarly, major advances were realized in PAT tech-
nology including lightweight, structurally and thermally
stable telescopes; fast steering mirrors and other line-of-
sight control mechanisms; precision position sensors; in-
ertial measurement devices; nested-loop and feed-forward
LOS control electronics; vibration isolation techniques;
and lightweight a-thermal optical bench designs.
Numerous technology demonstration programs were
initiated and mostly cancelled before the technology could
be demonstrated in actual flight operations. These cancel-
lations occurred for a number of reasons including fund-
ing limitations, difficulties associated with meeting per-
formance requirements and schedules, difficulty with or
insufficient attention to packaging and system integration
issues, and failures during space qualification.
4. Government programs
This section reviews significant, selected U.S. government
programs. It is organized by laser type, starting with gas
laser programs, mostly conducted at NASA, moving on
to solid state laser programs, initially driven by the Air
Force, and finally semiconductor laser programs. These
later programs paralleled and benefited significantly from
commercial component developments for long-range ter-
restrial fiber optic systems.
4.1 Gas laser programs
In the early 1970s, NASA initiated a technology develop-
ment program for laser pointing and tracking technology.
Using CW high power (up to 100 Watt) Argon Ion lasers
and ground-based optical telescopes, a number of beacon
experiments were conducted with satellites in low Earth
orbit (LEO). In 1973, a coudé telescope with a preci-
sion tracking capability was used to send a beacon to the
Spacelab. Onboard, a variety of sensor/camera systems
were employed to study various aspects of beacon recep-
tion and pointing accuracy.
The Spacelab experiments led to the development of
the Mobile Optical Mount System. Fig. 2 shows this
trailer-mounted, 75-cm diameter tracking telescope. It had
an integrated Q-switched, frequency doubled Nd:YAG
laser beacon and was used in conjunction with retro re-
flectors mounted on several satellites to test and refine
acquisition and tracking technologies. In its closed-loop
234 Space Laser Communications: A Review of Major Programs in the United States
Fig. 2. NASA’s Mobile Optical Mount System for high precision
ground to space laser beacon pointing and tracking.
tracking mode, it achieved an rms noise equivalent angle
of 1.4 arc seconds, demonstrating that the extreme point-
ing and tracking requirements for space lasercom could be
met.
In the late 1960s, following the development of the
rare gas lasers, researchers discovered a number of other
types of gas lasers including molecular lasers. Of these,
the performance characteristics of carbon dioxide, (CO2 )
lasers closely matched the needs of laser communications:
stable single-mode CW operation, high power, good effi-
ciency, and two wavelength bands for excellent forward
and return link isolation. The high output power combined
with the CO2 laser’s long wavelength–in the mid-infrared
region–substantially decreased the mechanical tolerance
requirements of the PAT subsystem. Furthermore, the ex-
cellent degree of coherence of the laser combined with the
availability of linear electro-optic modulator materials and
photo detectors provided the opportunity for use of sensi-
tive heterodyne and even homodyne detection receivers.
Recognizing these benefits in the early 1970s, NASA
started a development program for space laser communi-
cations based on a CO2 laser transmitter. This program
led to key advances in the understanding of the system-
level aspects of high-data-rate space laser communica-
tions. Among the significant technology advances made
were high-speed phase modulation and heterodyne de-
tection techniques, closed-loop tracking of a laser local
oscillator in the presence of Doppler shifts, and efficient
beam combining and mode matching at the photo detector.
NASA’s plan was to fly a CO2 laser terminal on the
ATS-6 satellite and demonstrate 1 Mbps communications
to a ground station. For a second, later experiment, an
inter-satellite link experiment between two ATS satellites
was planned. Unfortunately, difficulties with space qual-
ification of the laser tube delayed the completion of the
flight hardware beyond the technology cut-off date for the
launch and the program was terminated.
Beginning in the early 1980s, DARPA funded a se-
ries of technology efforts to demonstrate spaceborne laser
Fig. 3. Optical receivers on submarine for SLC–Sat air to ground
lasercom testing.
communications to submerged submarines. Under the
SLC-Satellite program, a lasercom terminal operating in
the blue-green range was developed. Two different lasers
were investigated. The initially preferred wavelength was
in the blue-green portion of the spectrum provided by
a Xenon–Chloride laser Raman shifted with a Lead va-
por cell. The laser was tuned to the ultra-sharp passband
of a Cesium vapor atomic resonance filter used at the re-
ceiver side to block all out-of-band spectral components.
For a competing approach, a novel Nd:YAG laser design
operating in the green portion of the spectrum was also
developed. This laser design used a slab instead of the
customary rod configuration and is discussed later in this
article.
The two laser transmitters were tested in separate trials
onboard a P3 aircraft that flew in a circular pattern above
the submarine at an altitude of about 10 km. The airborne
terminal tracked a beacon transmitted from the subma-
rine. The green wavelength approach was demonstrated
during a set of sea trials in the North Atlantic. The blue-
green approach was demonstrated in trials off the coast of
San Diego. Fig. 3 shows the optical receivers attached to
a Dolphin class submarine. These trials confirmed that sea
water penetration to the required depth could be achieved.
Although successful, the program was not continued be-
yond the trials as operational interests had shifted.
4.2 Solid state laser programs
In the late 1970s, the U.S. Air Force began funding laser
communications work with system-level studies that com-
pared the different laser technologies available in a variety
of communications scenarios. These studies led to the se-
 Space Laser Communications: A Review of Major Programs in the United States 235

lection of the Nd:YAG solid state laser as the prime trans-

mitter candidate for a number of communications needs
and led to the first fully integrated laser terminal develop-
ment and demonstration. The outstanding features of the
Nd:YAG laser that led to this selection were:
• Delivered high output power in continuous wave and
pulsed (Q-switched) modes
• Offered two wavelengths – infrared and frequency
doubled green
• Provided spectral pure and spatial single mode output
• Availability of external electro-optic modulators with
high bandwidth at both wavelengths
• Availability of photodetectors at both wavelengths
The main disadvantage of the laser was its very low
efficiency, particularly in the early stages of flash lamp
pumping. However, this changed dramatically with the
maturing of semiconductor laser technology in the mid-
1980s that ultimately led to the predominance of the
Nd:YAG laser technology.
The first major Air Force program was aimed at build-
ing a technology demonstrator, a communications termi-
nal breadboard capable of transmitting a 1 Gbps data rate.
The transmitter was a flash lamp pumped Nd:YAG laser
operating in the frequency-doubled mode. A novel mod-
ulation technique, pulse interval modulation, was applied Fig. 4. Airborne Flight Test console for 1 Gbps Nd:YAG trans-
ceiver demonstration.
using electro-optic modulators. Multiplexing a number of
TV channels available in the St. Louis, Missouri area and
transmitting the digitized aggregate data over the laser
link successfully demonstrated this capability. This suc-
cess led to the funding for the Airborne Flight Test System
(AFTS) program.
The objective of the AFTS program was to develop
a fully integrated lasercom terminal for space communica-
tions and to demonstrate its operation in an air-to-ground,
1-Gbps data transfer from a KC-135 aircraft flying at an
altitude of 10 km to a ground counter terminal. During
this program, the flash-lamp pumped, Q-switched, cavity-
dumped Nd:YAG laser was integrated with a tracking
telescope that interfaced with a two-axis beam steering
mechanism. Initial problems with the modulator crystal
during the high power acquisition mode were overcome Fig. 5. Schematic of frequency doubled diode pumped Nd:YAG
by doping the modulator crystal. The first flight demon- slab laser transmitter.
stration was successfully performed at White Sands, New
Mexico in 1980.
Besides demonstrating the feasibility of the Nd:YAG of 85.000 km. One major objective of the program
technology, the AFTS program demonstrated that a reli- was the development of a significantly more efficient
able link could be established between a dynamic plat- Nd:YAG laser by replacing the flash lamp pump with
form (aircraft) and a tracking ground station. Fig. 4 shows a bank of high power semiconductor lasers. This led
a technician operating the terminal in the aircraft. The to the design of the slab laser illustrated in Fig. 5.
equipment was not packaged for compactness, with rack- The most difficult challenge was meeting the high out-
mounted electronics and a “flying optical bench” making put power and lifetime requirements for the AlGaAs
up the hardware. Based on the success of this demon- pump lasers operating in the absorption band of the
stration program the Air Force decided to proceed with Nd:YAG material. A series of improvements in the semi-
a production lasercom terminal development (Laser Com- conductor fabrication process were needed before the
munications Subsystem [LCS]) for inter-satellite commu- required output power could be achieved. The lifetime
nications for the Defense Support Program (DSP). objectives could only be met by operating the entire
The objective of the DSP program was to pro- bank of pump lasers at −20 ◦ C. This slab laser design
vide communications between the geostationary DSP eventually became the first fully space qualified laser
surveillance satellites at about 1 Mbps over a distance transmitter.
236 Space Laser Communications: A Review of Major Programs in the United States
Fig. 6. Space qualified LCS ND:YAG lasercom terminal mounted
in test bed structure.
Another significant accomplishment of this program
was the packaging of the laser transceiver, the diffraction
limited optics, and the PAT functionality into an inte-
grated, lightweight terminal using a composite material
structure. Fig. 6 shows the completed, space-qualified ter-
minal. Unfortunately, none of the terminals were ever
launched, even though one of them was integrated with
the spin-stabilized DSP 17 satellite in 1991. After years of
development work and the delivery of two flight-qualified
terminals, the program was cancelled in 1993 as the re-
quirements of the DSP program had changed.
4.3 Semiconductor lasers
The late 1970s saw the emergence of continuous semicon-
ductor lasers operating in the near infrared. Compared to
other laser types, these devices provided an optical com-
munications breakthrough because of their small size, ef-
ficiency, potential low cost, and ability to be directly mod-
ulated at high data rates. For space laser communications,
their output power was initially too small and their non-
Gaussian beam characteristics required development of
novel optical components. However, in the early to mid-
1980s, some of the early problems, such as facet damage,
spectral purity, and lifetime limitations, were overcome as
their solution was also of interest to the commercial ter-
restrial fiber communications industry. Single mode semi-
conductor lasers delivering tens of mW and operating over
a fairly wide band became available. These made it pos-
sible to generate the high output power levels needed for
space communications through both coherent and inco-
herent power combining methods.
The semiconductor fabrication process improvements
mentioned in the previous section led to major improve-
ments in multi-mode semiconductor laser sources. De-
vices with output power levels at the Watt level became
available and led to development of optically pumped
transmitters and amplifiers.
The 1970s also saw significant advances in semicon-
ductor photodetectors. These quickly replaced the photo-
multiplier tubes because of their size, cost, and robustness,
although their sensitivity in the visible spectral region did
not match up to that of the tubes. Both PIN diodes and
avalanche photodiodes (APDs) working in the visible and
infrared with good quantum efficiencies became available
for data rates in the 100s of Mbps. Although the inter-
nal gain of APDs was a major advantage, their relatively
low bandwidth, high excess noise levels, and sensitivity to
ionizing radiation limited their use in space laser commu-
nications.
One of the first programs employing semiconductor
lasers was the Laser Intersatellite Transmission Experi-
ment (LITE) conducted by MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the
mid-1980s. It was to provide data rates up to 220 Mbps
over a 40 000 km range. LITE used a low power (30 mW)
laser, FSK modulation, and heterodyne detection. Al-
though never launched, several integrated terminals with
full communication, acquisition, and tracking capability
were built and rigorously tested for space operation.
After an interruption of several years, NASA re-
turned to communications technology development in
1981. Their renewed interest in laser communications was
spurred by the need for higher transfer rates between the
increasingly productive LEO Earth sensing satellites and
the geostationary Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Sys-
tem (TDRSS). The use of TDRSS was more cost effective
than providing the LEO satellites with direct wideband
communications links to a large number of ground sta-
tions.
The constellation baseline was for an East satellite
service, a West satellite service, and a backside satellite
service separated by approximately 120 deg. via the GEO
– GEO laser links, A second constellation, the tracking
and data acquisition satellite (TDAS) included laser links
between GEO – GEO satellites 160 degrees (84 000 km)
apart. The in-view satellites would act as relays for the
out-of view satellites. Similarly, the increasing data rates
of the LEO sensors led to investigations for replacing
the LEO – GEO microwave links with laser links for the
next generation of these satellites. Data rates were asym-
metric, with initially 650 Mbps and later 2 Gbps for the
GEO –GEO forward links, and 110 Mbps for the GEO –
GEO return links. The LEO – GEO links required base-
band digital return rates of up to 1 Gbps on the uplink,
and 50 Mbps on the downlink for signaling, control, and
commands. Fig. 7 depicts several major space lasercom
applications supported by this system configuration, in-
cluding the three TDRSS satellites with their respective
links.
NASA conducted a number of system-level studies for
these intersatellite terminal designs comparing different
laser technologies and decided in favor of semiconductor
transmitter technology (AlGaAs and InGaAs) combined
with direct detection receivers. They investigated inco-
herent power combining using wavelength division mul-
tiplexing, coherent power combining using a master os-
cillator power amplifier (MOPA) concept, and performed
extensive laser life tests. The MOPA concept separates
 Space Laser Communications: A Review of Major Programs in the United States
Deep
Space
Probe
GEO-Data Relay
Spaceborne
Remote
Sensing
Surveillance
Satellite
Network Teledesic
LEO
Crosslink
Space Station
Data Relay
Fig. 7. GEO TDRSS configuration with intended intersatellite
communications links.
the signal generation/modulation components from the
high power generation component, and was an important
milestone in transmitter design. It enabled optimization
of the design of each component without compromising
the other. This led to significant increases in both transmit
power levels and higher data rates.
During the same time frame, other technologies also
made major strides. One of these was electronic data stor-
age with higher capacity and low power consumption.
This capability allowed LEO platforms to collect and store
sensor data without a continuous data link to the TDRSS
network and led to a temporary setback in the interest
for high rate LEO – GEO laser links. However, work at
NASA continued and led in the late 1980s to a new laser
communications program. Jointly funded by NASA and
the Air Force, this program had the objective to demon-
strate laser communications from a GEO synchronous
platform to the ground by developing a terminal for the
Advance Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS).
The ACTS program itself was intended as a testbed for
high-risk, new space communications technology, partic-
ularly millimeter wave transceiver technology, on-board
baseband processing, and switching. This very successful
program led the way to a new generation of communica-
tion satellites.
The ACTS laser communications experiments were
to include both direct detection and heterodyne detec-
tion trials with ground-based and airborne counter ter-
minals. Based on its experience with the LITE pro-
gram, MIT Lincoln Laboratory developed the PAT, the
optical bench, and the heterodyne transceiver, while
NASA undertook the development of the direct detection
transceiver, which would be integrated onto the optical
bench.
237
Fig. 8. High power diode laser transmitter breadboard using inco-
herent power combining.
Unfortunately, work on the terminal took more time
than planned and ACTS was launched in September 1993
without the lasercom terminal. Development of the ter-
minal continued for some time at reduced funding levels.
It led to an advanced terminal design based on fiber in-
terconnects between optical components with polarization
maintaining single-mode fibers. The performance of the
completed terminal, including the acquisition and track-
ing capability, was fully tested in a specially developed
ground-based testbed. Link acquisition and handover to
tracking was tested repeatedly resulting in a probability
of success of 99.9% at power levels below the expected
on-orbit value.
Another program directed at the development of semi-
conductor transmitter technologies was the U.S. Air
Force’s Boundary Layer Experiment program. A part of
this effort, the 1982 High Data Rate Laser Transmit-
ter (HDRLT) program employed a series of very narrow
bandpass filters attached to a glass block for wavelength
division multiplexing. A number of single mode pulsed
laser diodes tuned to slightly different wavelengths were
co-aligned so that all the beams exited the glass combiner
along the same optical axis. As shown in Fig. 8, this trans-
mitter consisted of two sets of eight lasers, each operating
at a closely controlled wavelength. The two sets have orth-
ogonal polarization and are polarization combined into
a single output beam. With this approach and a direct de-
tection receiver, data transmission at a 1 Gbps data rate
was demonstrated.
In 1985, the U.S. Air Force funded the Boost Surveil-
lance and Tracking Satellite (BSTS) program. Having
data links between the satellites, it was planned to one
day replace the DSP constellation. Fig. 9 illustrates the
proposed lasercom platform with its three terminals and
its position on the satellite. Despite the success of the
DSP program with the slab Nd:YAG laser, the decision
was made to use semiconductor laser technology for the
BSTS program. The intent was to develop a transmitter
based on coherent power combining with a large array of
laser diodes. Soon, however, it became apparent that the
238 Space Laser Communications: A Review of Major Programs in the United States
Fig. 9. Three-terminal satellite lasercom platform desing for
BMDS program.
Fig. 10. 1.2-Gbps diode laser satellite communications terminal
mounted on STRV-2 space craft.
semiconductor fabrication process state-of-the-art was not
ready to provide the high level of uniformity across the
diode array needed to achieve the desired beam quality.
The program was cancelled in the early 1990s.
During the late 1980s and the 1990s, the Ballistic
Missile Defense Organization and the U.S. Army Space
and Strategic Defense Command funded a program to
design, build and fly a satellite laser communications ter-
minal. Using directly modulated semiconductor lasers and
avalanche photodiode detectors communications up to gi-
gabit per second speeds were to be demonstrated. The
acquisition and tracking subsystem used separate diode
beacon lasers, a CCD camera, and a narrow band Ce-
sium atomic line filter for background light rejection.
This program led to the launch of a satellite terminal as
part of the Space Technology Research Vehicle-2 experi-
ment which flew on TSX-5 in 2000. The satellite termi-
nal including the electronics weighed 31.5 pounds, and
is shown mounted on the front of STRV-2 in Fig. 10. It
was capable of full duplex communications at 1.2 Gbps
(2 × 600 Mbps channels on right and left circular polar-
izations) between satellites in a LEO constellation. The
STRV-2 experiment also called for a satellite-to-ground
lasercom link at distances up to 2000 km. In cooper-
ation with JPL a ground terminal was installed at the
Table Mountain Facility and satellite-to-ground lasercom
experiments were conducted. As it turned out, the host
satellite’s ephemeris data was not sufficiently accurate to
support open-loop pointing of the ground terminal bea-
con. A communications link could thus not be estab-
lished before priorities changed and the program was
terminated.
5. Deep space laser communications
A discussion of laser communication developments for
planetary and deep space missions is included here as
a separate section because this application presents devel-
opers with unique challenges in two critical technologies–
PAT and maximally efficient transport of data. In the U.S.,
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of
Technology took the lead in the 1980s in this area, focus-
ing on technology that could meet the specific demands
of NASA’s missions. The JPL deep space optical com-
munications program continues to this day focusing on
system-level improvements and field demonstrations with
ground-based transceiver stations.
One of the early contributions of this program was the
development of high-order M-ary pulse position modu-
lation (PPM). This modulation format is especially well
suited for deep space missions as it takes advantage of
the high peak-power, low average power operation of
lasers in the Q-switched mode. Through framing of the
data stream into a large number of time slots and pre-
cise positioning of a laser pulse in one of these time
slots in each frame, record transmission efficiencies can
be achieved. With a 1064-nm Nd:YAG laser and dir-
ect detection, JPL demonstrated a transmission efficiency
of 0.4 photons per bit, that is, roughly two orders of
magnitude higher than other techniques including ho-
modyne detection. Such a laser link can support useful
data rates (approximately kbps to Mbps) between a plan-
etary platform and an Earth terminal using telescope
apertures of 10 to 30-cm on the satellite and 10-m on
the ground.
On the uplink, atmospheric scintillation causes deep
signal fades. These lead to long burst errors that are diffi-
cult to overcome with interleaving and coding techniques
and limit useful data rates. Adaptive optical techniques
and multi-beam transmission approaches need to be em-
ployed to mitigate such signal fades.
The extremely large distance combined with the at-
mosphere poses a major challenge to the PAT technology.
Fig. 11 shows that closed-loop acquisition and tracking
techniques cannot be employed as space craft venture to-
wards the outer planets and into deep space. For missions
in the outer planetary regions, closed-loop laser beacon
tracking becomes ineffective due to the long propagation
delay.
The road map to deep space laser communication
implementation thus relies on experience gained from
technology demonstrations with Earth-orbiting satellites.
Such demonstrations must be conducted to prove the reli-
 Space Laser Communications: A Review of Major Programs in the United States 239

Fig. 11. Lasercom tracking techniques for deep space missions.

ability of the technology under representative operational

conditions.
During the Ground-to-Orbit Lasercom Demonstra- Fig. 12. Earth beacon pulses recorded by Galileo camera at 6 mil-
tion (GOLD), JPL conducted the first such demonstration lion km.
using JPL’s Table Mountain Observatory (TMO) in Cali-
fornia and the ETS-VI satellite developed and built in
Japan. This 1.064 Mbps two-way optical communications
experiment was conducted over a period of seven months
in 1996. It required simultaneous and cooperative oper-
ation by team members in Tokyo and California. A key
objective was to measure the atmospheric attenuation
and to validate the performance of the optical link. The
telemetry downlink provided in-orbit performance data
for the laser communications equipment. Bit error rates
of 10−4 and 10−5 were measured using pseudorandom
code generators on the downlink and uplink, respec-
tively. The measured signal power levels, when dynami-
cally calibrated for atmospheric attenuation, agreed with
theoretical predictions.
A second successful deep-space pointing experiment
was performed during the second Earth flyby of the
Galileo spacecraft, as part of the Galileo satellite Venus–
Earth–Earth Gravity Assist (VEEGA) trajectory. This
afforded a unique opportunity to perform a deep space op-
tical uplink experiment as the space craft receded from
Earth on its way to Jupiter. Eight days after Earth flyby,
the Galileo Optical Experiment (GOPEX) was conducted
from December 9 through December 16, 1992. Laser
beams were transmitted to the satellite from transmit-
ter sites at TMO and at the Starfire Optical Range in
New Mexico. At 6 million kilometers range (15 times the
Earth–Moon distance), the laser beam sent from TMO
was recorded by one of Galileo’s cameras as shown
in Fig. 12.
Since then, JPL has developed both an integrated
deep space optical communications demonstrator, shown
in Fig. 13, as well as NASA’s first optical communi-
cations ground station, the Optical Telecommunications Fig. 13. JPL deep space optical communications demonstrator
Telescope Laboratory located at TMO. terminal.
240 Space Laser Communications: A Review of Major Programs in the United States
6. Commercial intersatellite links
The first commercial interest in intersatellite links (ISL)
was by INTELSAT. This interest was initially for RF
ISLs to provide links between satellites that were fairly
closely spaced. INTELSAT sponsored development of
the required TWTAs and other hardware, and requested
a quote for ISLs for INTELSAT VI. The purpose of the
ISLs was to decrease the number of earth stations a given
site would need to access two satellites. INTELSAT sub-
sequently sponsored studies of optical ISL technologies
and some hardware development including laser arrays,
pointing systems, and an optical head with redundant
lasers.
In the 1980s, ESA sponsored a program to define the
requirements of an optical ISL that could connect EU-
TELSAT satellites with INTELSAT satellites. Both EU-
TELSAT and INTELSAT provided inputs to the require-
ments for this commercial system. As a commercial op-
eration, INTELSAT’s major concern, besides the lifetime
of lasercom terminals in space, was the reliability of high-
speed intersatellite links. Closed-loop mutual tracking of
two laser terminals on space platforms with limited iner-
tial stability and locally generated disturbances can cause
severe burst errors. This concern led to pioneering work
on burst error analysis at INTELSAT in the mid-1980s.
However, neither RF nor optical intersatellite links were
pursued, as INTELSAT’s business was not strongly de-
pendent on developing this capability.
The mid-1980s saw the beginning of a reversal in the
use of wired and wireless communications media. Up to
that time, personal communications were based on fixed
wired networks where circuit switched connections were
made between users by a hierarchy of switching centers.
Wireless communications were the domain of broadcast
radio and television and two-way push to talk radios. The
start of this reversal was the availability of car phones. It
triggered a growing public interest in mobile communi-
cations and led to several programs for providing global
seamless roaming services through commercial communi-
cation satellites in LEO.
The first of these programs was Iridium, launched in
the late 1980s by Motorola. The concept was bold: place
a constellation of satellites in LEOs in such a way that
phone service with handheld devices would be available
anywhere on the globe. Direct links between the satel-
lites was an integral part of the call routing process. Early
in the design phase, Motorola compared millimeter wave
and optical technologies for these intersatellite links. They
selected the 60 GHz solution because it had the ability to
deliver the relatively modest predicted data rates and was
technically more mature.
Thus, the first major opportunity for a large volume
commercial breakthrough for intersatellite laser commu-
nications was lost. Despite over two decades of develop-
ment work in laser communications, the technology was
not ready for operational deployment. Too many technol-
ogy changes had been made and too many programs had
been cancelled.
Fig. 14. Teledesic’s “Internet in the Sky” constellation with 126
LEO satellites.
During production of the Iridium satellites, Motorola
and Teledesic Corp. both made plans for yet another,
more ambitious space communications program: provide
a broadband “fiber in the sky” global service for corpo-
rate and private Internet users. Both companies competed
for a period, refining their LEO configurations and service
offerings. In 1997, Motorola agreed to merge their Ce-
lestri program with Teledesic’s program and became the
prime contractor for the space segment of the Teledesic
program. The space segment converged to a constellation
of 126 satellites positioned at an altitude of 1400 km in 14
equally spaced orbital planes at 50◦ inclination as shown
in Fig. 14.
Each satellite was to be equipped with six Optical In-
tersatellite Link (OISL) Terminals providing full duplex
connectivity with six counter terminals. Two of these were
located on forward and backward neighbors in the same
orbital plane, and two on the closest neighbors in adjacent
planes. The last two counter terminals were dynami-
cally allocated for links with two more forward/backward
neighbors in adjacent planes or links with satellites in
the next-to-adjacent planes. For maximum flexibility,
as well as system reliability, each terminal had to be
able to repeatedly make and break communications links
with its designated counter terminal whenever there was
a direct line of sight. Communication data rates were
not to be affected when either the Sun or the Moon
entered the receiver’s field of view. The top system-
level requirements for the Teledesic OISL are provided
in Table 1.
By the time, the Teledesic program was put on hold,
the lasercom terminal design was largely completed and
met all the critical requirements. Fig. 15 shows the engin-
eering model of the optical head. The design represents
the culmination of the prior decade’s developments and
 Space Laser Communications: A Review of Major Programs in the United States 241

Table 1. Key Teledesic OISL System-Level Requirements. tight interface specifications. The main design features
were:
User Data Rate 6.96 Gbps
Data Input in 24 Channels 290 Mbps each • Single, fine tunable optical carrier at 1064 nm wave-
Link Availability 99.999% of time length
Maximum Range 6000 km • Separation of oscillator, modulator, and power ampli-
Maximum Range Rate 6.8 km/s fier functions
Packet Loss Ratio 3.6 × 10−9 • Ultra-sensitive data transport using phase shift keying
Maximum Range Acceleration 34.0 m/s2 and homodyne detection
Operating Azimuth Range +/ − 95 deg • High transmit/receive isolation by geometrical de-
Max Azimuth Range∗ 270 deg sign, polarization, and carrier wavelength
Maximum Azimuth Rate 0.5 deg/s • High-speed digital data processing using custom de-
Maximum Elevation Range∗ 0 to 21 deg
Maximum Elevation Rate 0.04 deg/s
signed low-power application-specific integrated cir-
Power 95 W cuits (ASICs)
Mass 105 kg • Burst error mitigation by coding and scrambling
Lifetime 8 years • Separate control channel for closed-loop control of
transmit power control and point-ahead angle
∗ Includes capability to point terminals on the same satellite at each • Separate high power beacon transmitter
other for calibration • High speed tracking loop using two-axis fine pointing
mirror

Fig. 15. Engineering model: Teledesic lasercom head.
the convergence of the most advanced technologies avail-
able on both sides of the Atlantic. The transmitter uses
a non-planar ring Nd:YAG oscillator, an external inte-
grated modulator, and a single-mode polarization preserv-
ing fiber amplifier. The receiver side uses homodyne de-
tection in a unique detector plane combining acquisition,
tracking, and communications detectors. All major com-
ponents were breadboarded and tested, either individually
or in subassemblies. A radiation hardening program for
all components was underway. Back-up solutions were in
place for the most critical components. To meet the needs
of high volume production (close to 900 units), the design
consisted of highly compact subunits and modules with
7. Conclusions
We hope with this review that we succeeded in cor-
rectly retracing the U.S. laser communications develop-
ments of the last 40 years. Unfortunately, the common
characteristic of most of the programs to date in the US
was incompleteness and cancellation before flight demon-
stration. However, space lasercom has clearly matured
to the point where performance, schedule and cost risk
have become comparable to other accepted space tech-
nologies. This became evident during the Teledesic pro-
gram and has since been validated by the recent suc-
cess of a European program. Nevertheless, after the ter-
mination of the Teledesic program, the technologist are
is still waiting for a major encouragement by the space
application community, particularly on the commercial
side.
As a common Austrian saying goes: “Erstens kommt
es anders, zweitens als man denkt” (things don’t happen
as expected). For Walter Leeb and many of us, who have
spent a good part of our professional careers developing
space laser communications technology, it is a consoling
thought that lasercom has become the dominant technol-
ogy, at least for medium and long distance terrestrial com-
munications. Our globe is knit with a dense network of
optical fibers that provide the backbone for all our tele-
phone and Internet traffic. Today, communications carri-
ers are also deploying fiber in metropolitan area networks
(metro rings) and even as a “last mile” medium for broad-
band access to homes.
Acknowledgement
The authors very much appreciate contributions to this article
made by Louis Caudill and Nelson McAvoy, NASA (both retired);
Dr. Robert Peters, formerly with Intelsat; Dr. Keith E. Wilson,
JPL; Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schiffner, Ruhr Universität in Bochum,
and Dr. Eric Korevaar of Optical Access Inc. Thanks also go to
242 Space Laser Communications: A Review of Major Programs in the United States
Ms. Gail Donovan for her thorough editing, and to the staff of
the Communications Services Department at Ball Aerospace &
Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado for their help with the
graphics.
Gerhard A. Koepf During his tenure at
the Institute for Hochfrequenztechnik at
the University of Technology in Vienna,
Dr. Koepf was a member of the “Laser-
com Group”. He spent 5-years at the
NASA Goddard Space Center, where he
developed a laser heterodyne receiver for
the far infrared and submillimeter wave
regime. With this receiver, he took part
in two astronomical observations at the
Mauna Kea observatory in Hawaii. He
then joined Comsat Laboratories as manager of the optical com-
munications department, where he worked on undersea fiber-optic
communications, TDRSS and Intelsat space lasercom studies and
on coherent optical beamforming for phased array antennas. He
joined Ball Aerospace Corp. in 1985 as manager of the lasercom
department, was appointed Chief Scientist in 1986, and manager
of the active microwave antenna department in 1992. In that role,
he developed advanced technology for millimeter wave phased ar-
ray antennas. In 1994 he joined Superconducting Core Technology
as Chief Technology Officer. Since 1998 Dr. Koepf is working
as a self-employed consultant. His main engagements were in the
Teledesic lasercom program with Motorola, a government program
in superconductivity with General Dynamics, and for the last two
years with Mobility Networks, a Silicon Valley start-up company
developing products for wireless communications.
David L. Begley Throughout his ca-
reer, Dr. Begley has played a leading
role in lasercom technology in the US.
With his numerous contributions in jour-
nals and at conferences, he is well known
and respected within the industry. After
an initial 3-year academic career, his in-
terests shifted to device development for
aerospace applications. Between 1982 and
1988 Dr. Begley held various positions
at the McDonnell Douglas Astronautics
Company with increasing responsibilities, developing components
and subsystems for a range of programs including the Space
Relay System, Boundary Layer Experiment, Laser Crosslink Sub-
system, Diode Pumped Slab Laser and Phase Integrated Laser
Optical Transmitter program. He joined Ball Aerospace & Tech-
nologies Corp. in 1988 as senior program manager for Laser
Subsystems and Applications and was promoted to Director of
Laser Subsystems and Mechanisms in 1996. His responsibil-
ities included technology and program development for E-O
sensors, star trackers, LIDAR transceivers and lasercom sub-
systems, including diode pumped solid state laser transmitters,
wideband receivers, pointing, acquisition and tracking subsys-
tems, and the integration of these electro-optical subsystems on
ground, airborne, and space platforms. In 1998 he became di-
rector of the BATC Technology Incubator which produced two
spin-out companies based on BATC technologies. He is presently
Vice President of Strategic Management developing long term
strategic directions for BATC through research and develop-
ment, mergers and acquisitions, and new corporate business
initiatives.
Robert G. Marshalek Robert G. Mar-
shalek was born in Baltimore, Maryland,
in 1954. He received the B.E.S. and Ph.D.
degrees in electrical engineering from The
Johns Hopkins University in 1976 and
1982, respectively. From October 1981 to
September 1987 he was a Member of the
Technical Staff in the Optical Commu-
nications Department of COMSAT Labo-
ratories, Clarksburg, Maryland. His work
there included theoretical and experimen-
tal studies of optical intersatellite links, wavelength-division mul-
tiplex links, fiber-optic data distribution systems, and fiber-optic
local area networks. In September 1987, he joined Ball Aerospace
Systems Division, Boulder, Colorado, as a Principal Design En-
gineer and later Staff Consultant, to pursue modeling and experi-
mental characterization of components and subsystems for space
laser communications, as well as design and risk-reduction hard-
ware development for a variety of electro-optic and laser-based
systems.